Photo by Zach Bulick

Just as I think it’s valuable to look back on the last 12 months of progress, I also think that planning is at the core of actually getting what you want in life. This post is the counter-part to my 12 month review post.

What’s the big picture?

My purpose is to grow, with courage & openness, sharing love & honesty, and inspiring others to do the same.

I wrote that early 2011 and I’m pleased that 12 months on it still resonates strongly.

As I mentioned in my 2011 review, I’m at a unique point in my life – I feel like I’ve just hit the reset switch in many ways. I’ve cleared out all the clutter, have ended almost all the projects I was working on and now have a clean slate with a lot of available capacity. The challenge is to make the most of this opportunity and not just get lazy and pile a bunch of crap back in. Already this week I’ve spent more time than I care to admit playing iPhone games.

Photo by Nick McIntosh

For the last couple of years now, I’ve been doing an annual review and making a plan for the upcoming year.

This post is my 2011 review, and it will be followed by my 2012 plan in the coming week or so. To review my year, I go back through all my photos, videos, blog posts, emails, calendar entries and journal to jog my memory about what projects I worked on, the people I spent time with and the places I visited. This year I also made a number of video journals as well as keeping some written notes as to my thoughts and emotions during the last 12 months – these in particular have been really interesting to look over as I can clearly see the emotional peaks and troughs I experienced.

If you’re interested you can also read my 2010 review and my 2009 review.

At the start of 2011, I set a number of goals, a summary of which were to…

If you’re having trouble viewing the video, click here to watch Language Learning: First Impressions on YouTube.

It’s a now just on a month since I moved to Beijing, and for the past few weeks I’ve been immersed in my first ever intensive language course.

I’ve been attending classes from 8am -- 12pm, 5 days a week at Beijing Language & Culture University and will continue until mid-January, just before the Chinese New Year holiday festival.

4 hours of classes a day has been a massive shock to the system.  I originally planned that I would be able to use the rest of my day to focus on other activities, but instead I’ve found that after each class I come away absolutely exhausted and I feel like I’m having my brain slowly pushed through a sieve!  After class I find that I need to de-compress and the last thing that I want to do is sit in front of a computer.

If you’re having trouble viewing the video, click here to watch The China Plan on YouTube.

So one week ago, I left Australia and flew 9000 km to Beijing, China which is where I will be living for the foreseeable future. I sold up everything I owned and have little more than a suitcase with some clothes, a backpack and a laptop. The feeling is both incredibly liberating and utterly terrifying.
This post, and the video above is about answering the #1 question that I’ve asked since I announced that I was moving to China, which is…